Cosep will appeal to unconstitutionality against the law of the financial analysis unit

The business chambers grouped in the Upper Council of Private Companies (Cosep) will appeal in the Supreme Court to unconstitutionality against the Financial Analysis Unit Law (UAF) and its regulations, taking into consideration that it becomes a "suprapolic" entity where all citizens are subject to investigation, bank secrecy and privacy information of individuals and companies without any reason being violated.

The legal actions are prepared by the legal teams of the Cosep and the private banks to appeal in the coming days as unconstitutional against the Law of the UAF and its regulations, as well as against the Law against money laundering and financing. terrorism, informed the president of the guild José Adán Aguerri.

The president of Cosep explained to LA PRENSA that there is concern in the business community because the faculties of the UAF have been "crossed" by having direct access to personal and corporate data in eight public institutions, as well as being able to monitor the activities of a that institution, in its sole discretion, indicates without further evidence that it relates to money laundering or drug trafficking.

(VIDEO) Ortega makes financial espionage possible through the UAF

The dictator Daniel Ortega, through regulation, allowed the UAF to breach banking secrecy by having direct access to the data of the users of the banks through the central risk of supervision of banks and other financial institutions (Siboif).

Read more: Daniel Ortega appoints the police state via the UAF

"We have the right to respect our personal data, if anyone wants to know, there must be a legal process and explain the origin of that interest," Aguerri said.

The president of Cosep warned that a bank failure could lead to a larger take-up of bank deposits. More than nine hundred million dollars in bank deposits has been withdrawn since April when the socio-political crisis began.

Read more: The UAF has been formalized as an instrument for prosecuting the dictatorship of Nicaragua

"And all this does not pay," Aguerri said. He insisted that the private sector should not oppose laws to reinforce the prevention of money laundering and drug trafficking, but rejects those who have been adopted because they go beyond what the Latin American financial action group (Gafilat) is giving to Nicaragua. has asked.

José Dolores Reyes, director of legal advice from the UAF together with other members of that institution. THE PRESS / JADER FLORES

In 2012, Cosep called for partial unconstitutionality against the reform of the previous UAF law, which in Articles 4 and 9 has the freedom to request information from a natural or legal person and the subjects that are obliged to report this. without making a reservation. But when that law was repealed, the appeal was not successful.

Suprapolicitarian entity

The new law of the UAF, proposed by Ortega and approved by its deputies in the National Assembly last July, however, picked up those elements that affect the Constitution.

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Aguerri said the problem is "being enlarged" because "today the UAF in fact becomes a suprapolic entity" because its field of action "goes beyond the police and the legal system, where citizens are left unprotected".

For Cosep, it also poses a risk of doing business in Nicaragua because "there is legal uncertainty".

The representatives of the business community participated in the national dialogue with the government to solve the crisis that the country is going through. THE PRESS / CARLOS VALLE / ARCHIVE

"It puts your confidential information at risk.In the past we have seen how this information that is handled in the state is sold to people who are interested in those databases used for the sale of services, products (by other companies) It has been shown (cases in) that the databases of people (employees and employers) registered in the INSS, which appear purchased for non-fair commercial competition purposes, have been disseminated, "said Aguerri.

Read more: Regulatory authorities will be subordinate to the UAF

Other elements that undermine the stability of companies and the safety of Nicaraguans is that, according to Aguerri, these laws make the ministries and regulators "in organs of investigation and repression".

In Cosep they fear that the Ortega regime is planning to use the UAF with a "political background" against the corporate world, since the main chambers together with social movements, students and peasants are part of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, where Ortega demands to stop the repression and resume the dialogue to define the democratic route to peacefully end the six-month socio-political crisis.

Since April, as a result of the government's repression of citizen protests, the model of dialogue between business and the regime has been broken. Ortega has tried with economic measures to force entrepreneurs to resume the model, but has previously deepened the deterioration of the country's economy.

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In nearly six months of crisis, more than 340,000 formal and informal jobs have been lost and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have warned that the Nicaraguan economy will fall by an average of four percent by the end of the year and that it will fall back in 2019.

Cosep is expected today, along with the American Chamber of Commerce of Nicaragua and other private chambers, to make a statement on 11 October in which they express their rejection of the consequences of the UAF law and its regulations.